Category: Learn History Through Fiction

As men went off to fight in WWII, women were hired to replace them in the defense industry. Although the iconic poster of “Rosie the Riveter” is fixed in our minds, she was one of many women in manufacturing jobs. Rosie and her peers accounted for as much as 80% of the labor force in some factories. As valuable as they were, however, women were paid far less than men: $31.50 versus $54.65 per week on average. After the war, women were expected to return home and resume their roles as housewives. Read more about Detroit’s Rosie the Riveter and WWII in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve., a fictional biography of the actor who played the Munchkin Coroner in The Wizard of Oz (see NOVELS).

By 1900, the majority of men in Manhattan over 21 were foreign-born. Those coming ashore at Ellis Island were no longer from Northern Europe, but Eastern and Southern Europe and the Russian Empire. Nor were they Protestants, but Jews, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox. Nativist Americans, alarmed by the influx, favored mass deportations. Novelist Henry James, reflecting public sentiment, wrote of his disgust with “swarming” Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side, who reminded him of “small, strange animals … snakes or worms.” Read more about anti-immigrant sentiment a century ago in On the Shore (see NOVELS).

After the 1911 Triangle Waist Company fire, which killed 146 workers, police asked the morgue for 75 to 100 coffins but only 65 were available. A steamship traveled from the Bronx to Manhattan’s East River to pick up 200 coffins from the carpentry shop of Metropolitan Hospital on Blackwell Island and delivered them to the morgue. Read more grisly details about the aftermath of the fire in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Six months after the Armistice that ended World War I on November 11, 1919, when travel restrictions to former conflict zones were finally lifted, 60,000 people, most of them women, journeyed to find where their loved ones were buried. For many of the 8.5 million soldiers who died, the place and date of death remain unknown to this day. One British woman, who found her husband’s grave in the Somme said, “I have tried to think of it, and of him in it, and of what hell looks like. But I never imagined such loneliness and dreadfulness and sadness.” Read more about WWI and the women left behind in On the Shore (see NOVELS).

In Assisi embroidery, a beautiful old Italian needlework tradition, the background is stitched while the main motifs are only outlined. Outlines are black or brown, while red, blue, green, or gold thread is used for the background. Motifs feature symmetrical pairs of animals and birds surrounded by ornate filigree borders. The style dates to the 13th and 14th century, fell into disuse in the 18th and 19th century, and was revived at the turn of 20th century. A modern version of Assisi embroidery has been evolving in the 21st century, using many different colors, patterns, and motifs. However, the revived traditional version is still carried on in the town of Assisi where one can see local women sitting in front of their houses and stitching items for the local co-operative embroidery shop. Read how an Italian immigrant learned the technique from her grandmother (“nonna”) over a century ago in the historical novel Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

In the first edition of her classic book, Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home, published in 1922, Emily Post advised ignoring the “elephant at large in the garden,” meaning a wealthy know-it-all. She wrote “Why a man, because he has millions, should assume he confers omniscience in all branches of knowledge, is something which may be left to the psychologist to answer.” Post’s book is now in its 33rd edition, but some bad behavior and good advice hasn’t changed in nearly 100 years. Read more about cultural norms in the last century in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

In the original Frank L. Baum story, Dorothy’s slippers are silver. So why are they ruby in The Wizard of Oz movie? The color was changed to show off the wonders of Technicolor, first used in MGM’s 1939 movie classic. Screenwriter Noel Langley is credited with the idea. The shoes began as white silk pumps, dyed red, and overlaid with burgundy sequined organza. Two weeks before filming began, costume designer Adrian added butterfly-shaped leather bows with rectangular, red-glass jewels and dark red bugle beads, outlined by red glass rhinestones set in silver. Orange felt was glued to the soles to deaden the sound of Judy Garland dancing down the Yellow Brick Road. Read more about the making of the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

In the 1950s, many popular radio shows made the switch to television, including The Jack Benny Program, which moved in 1955 and ran for 10 years on CBS. In Jim Bishop’s book A Day in the Life of President Kennedy, JFK said he was too busy to watch most TV shows but made time each week to unwind with Jack Benny, the vain, penny-pinching miser who played the violin, badly, and insisted he was 39 years old, despite already being 61 when the show first aired. Read more about 1950s pop culture in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Italian immigrants founded many U.S. companies still with us today: Ghirardelli Chocolate, Progresso, Planters Peanuts, Contadina, Chef Boyardee, Italian Swiss Colony wines, and Jacuzzi. Italo Marchiony is credited with inventing the earliest version of the ice cream cone in NYC in 1898 (patented 1903). Read more about the contributions of Italian-American immigrants in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The 1935 National Labor Relations Act (a.k.a. Wagner Act) guarantees the rights of private sector employees to unionize, engage in collective bargaining, and strike. The act does NOT apply to some of the most vulnerable workers including agricultural, domestic, and public employees, as well as independent contractors. Read more about labor laws over the last century in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).